This invention relates generally to systems for automating common business communications tasks and more particularly to a system for designing computer applications for automating customer access to information in corporate databases.
The efficient exchange of information with customers is crucial to the success of most businesses. The prior art includes a number of systems by which businesses can improve communication with customers. Toll-free telephone numbers, automated call routing systems, computer bulletin boards and facsimile communication facilities all facilitate such information interchange. More recent prior art systems such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,722 permit users to obtain access to information stored in various formats through telephone connections.
As the communication channels between a business and its customers increase in availability, however, the sheer amount of information available to customers can itself become an impediment to efficient information interchange. While call routing systems and the like provide rudimentary menus to help organize communication, more sophisticated means are required to handle greater information flow. To provide flexibility in the operation of such systems, an "application" may be employed to direct the interplay among the various components of the system. Each business using such a system has slightly different requirements. Therefore, the application controlling system operation should be designed specifically to meet the needs of the business that will be using the system. As the number of manipulations and devices controlled by the system increases, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to custom-design applications for particular businesses, or to make changes to existing applications as the business grows or its needs change. By implementing applications in programmed computers, some flexibility is gained, and functionality can be changed without physical alteration of the system. Conventional object-oriented techniques permit changes to be made yet more easily. Object oriented systems have been employed in the prior art to develop user interfaces or unique programs, but object-oriented approaches are not known to have been successfully used in the prior art to provide such organizational capability for a customer information exchange system, nor could conventional object oriented approaches present a complete solution. Moreover, the use of actions operating on selected objects achieves a manageable number of choices in the system. Otherwise, the availability of M information sources, each with N possible activities, can quickly produce an unmanageable permutation of possible design choices as M and N increase.